


rooftop smoke

by eggpeeler



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: And You're Not Sure What To Do, Canon Compliant, M/M, Romance, Smoking, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, When It Hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29310282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggpeeler/pseuds/eggpeeler
Summary: Jungwoo’s casually holding a half-smoked cigarette in his right hand, the end blunt and orange.He watches Lucas fish out his own pack of cigarettes and smirks. “Need a light?” he asks.Lucas lets out a faint smile. “Sure.”
Relationships: Kim Jungwoo/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	rooftop smoke

**Author's Note:**

> this is by no means an endorsement of smoking, but it’s your life and what are my words if you’re happy that way? happy valentines’ day to the things, the people, the love that keeps us sane.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Jungwoo gives him a toothy smile, eyes sweet and cheeks full. Lucas knows the comment section is blowing up, green hearts and capital letters, but under the veneer of sugared fondness he doesn’t actually know what Jungwoo is thinking, how the cogs spin in his head.

“Annyeong~” Jungwoo is already murmuring and Lucas chimes in too, gritting out a bright smile. The other members do too, waving hands and bobbing heads.

The moment the VLive ends and their manager reclaims the phone from the plastic stand, Jungwoo gets up to leave. That dreamy grin on his face has vanished; instead his eyes blear with exhaustion. Lucas doesn’t stop him, doesn’t pull him in for a non-committal conversation, because he’s already brushing his blonde hair back and out the door.

Each time on-screen Jungwoo morphs back into his original off-screen self, Lucas can’t help but feel awe. Maybe even a twang of concern too, how Jungwoo’s two separate personas are cleaved so cleanly different, how each time he manages to toggle between personalities like Netflix accounts. 

Lucas could never do that. Off-screen Lucas and on-screen Lucas are the same person, the same bumbling puppy man-child with gigantic palms and a full-throated giggle. Of course when he’s filmed he plays up certain aspects of his personality, the parts of himself he’s more comfortable with, the bits of Lucas he’s confident about. 

Off-screen Lucas is more mellow, less suave. Real-life people aren’t content with just a pretty face - often they see through the innocent giggly facade he puts on to distract from the raging sea in his head, the turmoil he lets take over each time he’s alone.

Lucas is handsome. Lucas is charming, he knows that. But Lucas is also insecure, lonely and a whole lot of other things he can’t put a name to. Today when Jungwoo tells him he loves him too there’s a pang of something in his chest, mostly because those words are obviously empty. Yet each time Jungwoo does this, simulates this special intimacy with him - ever since that concert they flirted on stage and the Internet erupted cooing and yearning - Lucas returns the favor, even if it crushes him. Even if it means Jungwoo plants his soft hands firmly around his waist and his heart palpitates off-rhythm and his stomach hardens in shame.

He’s an attention whore.

Lucas gets up for the door. He’s been feeling pretty shit lately, but in order to hold things together he knows how just to catch himself before the self-loathing goes overboard. And each time the thoughts spiral into darkness he goes out, as high up as possible to keep his head in the light. 

He emerges onto the SM building rooftop, fingers fumbling through his pocket for that packet he’s sure he brought. Alas there’s someone already there, someone else he has to share this haven of solitude with.

Of course it has to be Jungwoo.

Lucas thinks of leaving, of closing the door shut and finding somewhere else to be free, anywhere else, but Jungwoo has already seen him.

“Come here to escape too?” Jungwoo calls out to him, voice thick.

Lucas wills himself forward into the balmy spring air. “Yeah,” he nods, pulling his coat closer around him.

Jungwoo’s casually holding a half-smoked cigarette in his right hand, the end blunt and orange. 

He watches Lucas fish out his own pack of cigarettes and smirks. “Need a light?” he asks.

Lucas lets out a faint smile. “Sure.”

He grips a stick between his fingers and holds it out for Jungwoo, who expertly flicks open his lighter and sets the end aflame. It’s strangely intimate, the two of them with their foreheads leaning in, like that.

Lucas quickly brings the cigarette to his lips, exhaling out the smoke long and slow. The city beneath them extends for miles on end, beyond the river and the mountains that fringe the horizon.

“That’s a nice lighter you have.” Lucas glances at Jungwoo’s pocket. “Very you.”

“Oh this?” Jungwoo holds out the vintage red box adorned with bold print and lined with fine cursive lettering. “I designed it myself.”

“Really? It looks so good! If you hadn’t told me I would’ve thought it was designer.”

“Thanks.” Jungwoo chuckles. “I started sketching it up that day the photos of me smoking leaked to the press.”

Lucas’ eyes widen as he holds his cigarette aloft.

“The managers were throwing a fit, but I thought to myself, if everyone knew about it I wouldn’t have to hide anymore. And I was going to celebrate by getting the most amazing lighter I could ever imagine.”

Lucas stares at Jungwoo in admiration as he casually thumbs the ash from the end of his cigarette.

“I don’t know how you do it.” Lucas speaks to the buildings first, then glancing over to the younger beside him. “The day I accidentally showed my cigarette packet on VLive, the managers scolded me so bad I went to bed in a fit.” He glumly takes a puff from his cigarette. “I was affected by it for so many days, but you literally didn’t give a shit. Just went on living your life.”

Jungwoo gives him a faint smile. “Who says I wasn’t affected? I ranted about it all day to Mark and then I cried myself to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning I realized I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Why should I be ashamed of something I didn’t do wrong?”

Lucas feels a warm rush to his chest, something between awe and shame. He takes another drag from his rapidly shortening cigarette stub.

“Sometimes I wonder- ” Lucas stutters out, grey smoke still unraveling into the cool. “I wonder why people even put me beside you, _hyung_. When I’m nowhere nearly as mature or as wise as you.”

Something falls in Jungwoo’s face, his gaze softening in concern. It’s not something Lucas would share, Lucas knows it himself, but he’s only doing it first because Jungwoo first proactively laid bare his insecurities. Because Jungwoo indicated he was comfortable around him first, so Lucas felt comfortable being truly himself. His bumbling, unsure self.

Jungwoo stays silent, gripping onto the stub in his fingers. 

_Shit. Did I overshare?_ Lucas wonders to himself in panic. He tries to glance elsewhere, flicking the ash off his cigarette and racking his mind for another topic, but Jungwoo finally lays a palm on his shoulder, eyes subdued.

“Are you alright, Yukhei? You’ve been a bit out of it lately.”

Lucas bites his lips together, focusing his gaze on the concrete floor of the roof. He tries to say something, anything at all - but his chin is quivering, his throat is dry, and all he can do is bring the stump between his fingers to his lips. Alas it’s done for - there’s barely any tobacco left in it - so he lets it fall to the floor, lets his gangly arms fall to his sides.

Jungwoo crushes his stub under his foot too, and takes Lucas into a warm hug. Lucas is startled by the sudden advance, the sudden act of endearment that he tries backing away - however Jungwoo grips him tighter by the waist and holds him close. 

“You give too little credit to yourself, Yukhei,” Jungwoo softly whispers and he stops resisting. “You’re not just anyone, you know. You’re _the_ Lucas, the Wong Yukhei that crowds queue up for, that people around the world scream and literally go crazy for.”

“But _hyung_ , people like me just because they think I’m good-looking.” Lucas begins tearing, the sobs rising from the pit of his stomach uncontrollably. “They don’t know how much of a mess I am, how superficial I am, how _stupid_ I am.” He says it with all his might, voice lead with spite.

He feels Jungwoo recoil slightly at the venom in his words. “You’re anything but stupid, Yukhei. You’re one of the most understanding, most considerate and sensitive persons I’ve ever known. Don’t think we don’t notice how you always make sure that no one is left behind, or even left out of our conversations. And you’re just a ball of energy, hyung. Wherever you go, you make the room happy. People smile when you’re there.”

Lucas smiles a little bashfully at the sudden onslaught of praise. He brushes away his tears with his spindly fingers, pulling away to look Jungwoo in the eyes. 

“No that’s you, Jungwoo. You’re the ball of sunshine.”

“No, that’s you, Lucas-”

“No, that’s you-”

“No, you-”

Lucas kisses him to stop the argument. He doesn’t know what triggers it, but there’s something so adorable about how Jungwoo’s looking in that moment and how he’s trying to deny it with all his face that causes him to lean forward and kiss him on the lips.

It takes a full few seconds and Jungwoo’s fingers shifting in shock around his shoulders that Lucas realises what he’s done.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, I’m sorry -” Lucas pulls off immediately, the tears immediately springing to his eyes. Frantically he shifts away from Jungwoo, bringing his palm to his eyes, his face, _fuck_ \-- why did he have to lose control, like this?

“I’m so sorry, I’m such a mess, I- I- ” Lucas can’t even look Jungwoo in the eyes as he flings himself back into the open, away from the temporary warmth he just single-handedly ruined. “I can’t be, I need to be alone - “ he murmurs words of apology as he breaks free from Jungwoo’s arms, and he’s trying to bolt for the exit.

But fingers clasp around his left wrist and they’re pulling him back, firmly but not forcefully, back to Jungwoo. Lucas stares blankly at Jungwoo, straight ahead because they’re about the same height, at him and his rosy cheeks and his eyes dark with an expression he cannot decipher, and suddenly Jungwoo’s pressing back towards him. Their lips connect for the second time, and Lucas is the one aghast now, why is Jungwoo kissing him tender and soft and so fucking comforting?

He pulls Jungwoo off a second time, panting and out of breath. 

“I-I- made a mistake, Jungwoo. You don’t have to do this because you sympathise with me-”

“But what if I want to do this?” There’s a fire blazing in Jungwoo’s eyes, an orange passion Lucas has never seen before. “What if it isn’t sympathy?”

Lucas’ jaw falls. His chest is pounding, thumping so fast that his hands are nearly shaking, and he’s doing everything he can to still himself. He’s hanging onto Jungwoo’s every syllable now, mind vacant.

“I know this isn’t the best time to be telling you this-” Jungwoo threads through his hair, eyes darting away as he wets his lips, seemingly debating with himself even as he lets on, “but- but I love you, Yukhei. I love you. I’ve loved you, ever since you danced with me on stage with a gigantic smile when I was just trying to be stupid for the fans. And I love you a bit more each time you put your arm around me, or when your eyes rove around the room to make sure everyone is included in the fun. And I love you, even now when you’re crying and telling me the silliest, most delusional things.”

Lucas can’t believe his ears. He doesn’t even know what to say. “But- but I thought you were only doing it because the company and the fans wanted it,” he stutters out as Jungwoo stares back, studied and sincere.

“At first I thought I was, but I was thinking of you - looking at you too much for it not to be real. It may not seem like it, but there’s only that much I can put on for the screens -” Jungwoo hangs his head sheepishly, the tips of his ears red, as if he’s just realized the weight of his words. Rubbing the back of his neck nervously, he glances back into Lucas’ eyes, slightly hesitant now. “You don’t have to give me a reply, or feel like you have to accept my love because you’re nice - I don’t even know why I’m telling you this now - but you just need to know, you’re a lot more than you give yourself credit for, Lucas.”

Lucas watches the way Jungwoo fidgets now, rubbing his palms together tentatively. How the tables have turned. The edges of Lucas’ lips upturn slightly as Jungwoo keeps his eyes trained on his feet, jaw still twitching from the rawness of his confession. His fingers fumble back into his pocket for his own cigarette pack again, to unloosen another stick to take away the awkwardness, but Lucas blurts out before Jungwoo successfully pulls out his lighter. 

“But what if I want to do this?” A wide grin spreads across Lucas’ face. “What if it isn’t sympathy?” 

“Bitch,” Jungwoo grins back but there’s no bite. Instead his warm, brown pupils trace back into Lucas’ eyes.

The both of them lean forward simultaneously this time, pressing their lips together. It’s a chaste kiss, warm and tasting strongly of tobacco, but it transmits perfectly what Jungwoo feels for him, the golden rush he feels in his chest he feels for Jungwoo. It’s everything he needs now.

“You sure about this?” Jungwoo pulls back, doubtful. There’s worry clouding his face, something that looks like guilt. “I feel like I’m forcing you into this.”

“You won’t believe how much I’ve wanted you too,” Lucas beams back, eyes glowing in adoration. “I mean I was the one who danced with you first that day - you were just too cute. You don’t know how I died a little each time you said you loved me, when I thought you were faking it. When it means so much to me.”

“Actually I do,” Jungwoo finally smiles back in relief, palms pressed to Lucas’ shoulders. “I really didn’t know how long I could take it - when I had to say it in front of the world, yet I couldn’t tell you that when we were alone. But honestly what killed me most was when I saw you hurting inside and I couldn’t even ask you about it. I couldn’t do anything to help you, to help take the pain away.”

Lucas tenderly strokes a line down Jungwoo’s cheek with his index finger. “Don’t make it your problem - it’s mine, Jungwoo.”

“I know, but I’ll be here, okay?” Jungwoo holds Lucas’ gaze, steady and firm. “We’ll get through this together. If you’re not alright, or it’s hurting, find me. You can call me at midnight and I’ll come running to you, with a box of chicken.”

He’s looking at Lucas so earnestly Lucas thinks he’s staring at the sun.

“I love you so much, Jungwoo.”

“I love you more.”

“No, _I love_ you more _-”_

“Shut up. Obviously _I_ love you more…”

  
  
  



End file.
